


No Ordinary Pearl

by toushindai (WallofIllusion)



Series: Lotto Valentino Gems [1]
Category: Baccano!
Genre: F/F, Femslash February, Steven Universe AU, gem au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 06:41:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9589256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WallofIllusion/pseuds/toushindai
Summary: One of Lucrezia's Pearls catches her attention.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I have spent far too much of the last three days thinking up this dang AU. Someone stop me.

Among the Pearls that Lucrezia owned, there was one very unique one.

Lucrezia had been quick to notice that she, alone among all the House Dormentaire’s Pearls, lacked the meek docility that her gem usually displayed. She tossed her head when asked to stand at the feet of her masters, conveying something that was not _quite_ scorn—something that was, perhaps, the resolve that if this was to be her duty, she would do it in a way that was worth being proud of.

And Lucrezia _loved_ that. She took this Pearl for her very own and brought her with her whenever she could. She studied this Pearl, trying to discern what made her so very _different_. There were other Pearls who took pride in serving the House Dormentaire, but this one had an air of impatience that Lucrezia didn’t see often.

It was only when she brought the Pearl with her to the Quartzes’ training ground that she began to have an inkling of what was going on. There was _desire_ in the Pearl’s eyes as she watched them practice.

Lucrezia’s lips curled upwards. “Pearl,” she asked, “what is your name?”

The Pearl turned, stifling the longing shimmer in her eyes at once and replacing it with a deferential blankness. She began to offer her culture number, but that wasn’t what Lucrezia had asked at _all_.

“Your _name_ , sweetheart,” she repeated. “Haven’t you taken one?”

Most every gem created on Earth took a name much like the native humans did—Lucrezia had thought. Certainly all of her fellow Cubic Zirconiums, and the Sapphires and the Tiger’s Eyes and the Topazes and Quartzes, so she’d thought _everyone_ did. That she’d never heard a Pearl’s name simply because they were too lowly, treated too interchangeably.

But at the hesitation on this Pearl’s face, Lucrezia wondered if she’d been mistaken.

“My Diamond…” the Pearl said, still carefully blank.

“If you have a name, I want to know it,” Lucrezia said, willfully. “And if you don’t have one, I’d like to give you one. There is no law against Pearls taking names, is there?”

If there was, she would eradicate it. It was completely within her rights to do so. Cubic Zirconiums were the Earthly extension of the Great Diamond Authority, regarded and referred to as Diamonds except on those rare occasions that one of the Diamonds themselves visited from Homeworld. Lucrezia was not the eldest of her kind, but she knew what power she wielded and did so quite comfortably.

And this Pearl had caught her eye, and she wanted her to know that. She gazed at the Pearl with soft, shining eyes until finally the smaller gem bowed and saluted.

“My Diamond, my name is Carla.”

“ _Carla_ ,” Lucrezia repeated after her, letting the sound of it ring out musically. “How beautiful. Carla, why do you look at the Quartzes so?”

For the briefest of moments, there was nervousness visible on Carla’s face; then she composed herself—seemingly effortlessly—and spoke in the same deferential, disinterested tone as before. “If I have failed in my duty by casting my attention elsewhere, my Diamond, I apol—”

“You needn’t apologize,” Lucrezia said, cutting her off. “You have failed nothing. And you may call me Lucrezia, darling.”

“My Diamond, I cannot possibly do that.”

“What if I order you to?” Lucrezia prompted with a cheeky smile.

Carla fell silent. Perhaps Lucrezia was pushing too hard. She waved the subject away with an indolent hand, called for one of the Quartzes to come stand with them, and dismissed the others.

“I saw longing in your eyes, Carla. Don’t try to hide it; I am _far_ too acquainted with desire to miss it in someone else. So tell me the truth, darling—what is it that you desire about these Quartzes? Companionship? They do make _wonderful_ conversation partners.”

“I am sure they do, my Diamond.”

There was an unspoken _but_ hanging from the end of Carla’s sentence; so, the companionship of Quartzes was not what she desired. Lucrezia hadn’t really thought it was, anyway. She spoke her true guess:

“Do you desire to _fight_ like a Quartz does, Carla?”

The Quartz—a burly Amethyst named Aleix—burst out with a laugh that might have been impressed but was more likely to be mocking. Lucrezia cleared her throat to silence them, and waited for Carla’s answer.

Carla only gave a shallow bow without speaking. Her reticence was answer enough. Lucrezia smiled. “If you want to fight, then fight you shall. I’ll have space made for you in the Quartz barracks. Do you have a weapon, or shall I have one forged for you?”

Aleix scoffed, more openly this time. “My Diamond, there’s no way that a Pearl would—”

But Carla interrupted them with a _very_ un-Pearl-like glare as the gem on her left shoulder began to glow. With a smooth, practiced motion, she drew a gleaming sabre out of it and swept it out to the side, standing proud and beautiful. Lucrezia gave an entranced gasp without even meaning to.

Aleix, on the other hand, was not pleased at having been proven wrong. They sneered at Carla. “You can’t possibly know how to use that, _Pearl_ —”

“Aleix, you do not have the right to speak to my things that way.” Lucrezia interrupted them. And then, as they hastily saluted and tried to form an apology, she turned her gaze back towards Carla. “ _Do_ you know how to use your sword, dear?”

Carla bowed. Her movements were crisper now—more like a soldier’s—and they seemed natural even on her lithe, pearly frame. When she raised her head, there was a proud tilt to her chin like she’d been waiting her whole life for this.

“If my Diamond so desires, I would be honored to present a demonstration.”

Lucrezia clasped her hands together. “I would _love_ that. Can you fight Aleix?”

“If my Diamond so pleases.”

Again, Aleix scoffed. They materialized their own sword from the gem on their side, and the difference between the two weapons was as striking as the distance between their frames: Aleix’s broadsword was as thick as three of Carla’s sabre and required both hands to wield. And yet Carla didn’t quail as the two of them took their fighting stances.

“Don’t hurt her,” Lucrezia warned the Amethyst.

But at the same time, Carla said, “There is no need to hold back.”

Realizing that she had spoken over her mistress, the Pearl turned and bowed in apology. But she didn’t take her words back, and the way she stared at Aleix only reinforced their message.

Aleix’s lip curled in an unkind smirk. “I don’t take orders from Pearls.”

And yet, when Lucrezia gestured for the two of them to begin, it seemed to her that it _was_ Carla’s order that had been taken rather than her own. It certainly looked like Aleix was trying their hardest, swinging their sword in wide, dangerous arcs. But Carla avoided the attacks with nimble grace, using her size to her advantage as she darted back and forth. Aleix couldn’t land a hit.

Her eyes shimmering as she watched the fight, Lucrezia realized something _wonderful_ :

Carla wasn’t just unique.

She was _skilled_.

Aleix, too, was facing this realization, and they didn’t like it. Their frustration was growing and it only made them sloppier; finally, they failed entirely to keep up with Carla’s movements, and the Pearl wound up behind them, her sword hovering just over the Amethyst’s gem in what could be a killing blow. A crystalline moment as all three gems comprehended what had just happened. Then, Carla dematerialized her sword as Lucrezia burst into wild applause.

“Brava! Oh, _brava_!”

Carla bowed deeply and then stepped back into a Pearl’s place at her mistress’s feet. Her proud posture had not faded.

Aleix was not nearly as self-assured. They had fallen to their knees when Carla had put her sword away, their own sword clattering out of their hands. Horror adorned their face.

“My Diamond…” they said faintly, not daring to raise their eyes.

Lucrezia reached down with a gentle smile and rested one finger atop Aleix’s head. “That was a beautiful fight, Aleix,” she reassured them. “You did very well.”

“But I lost… to a _Pearl_ …”

Lucrezia raised her other hand and set two fingers down on Carla’s shoulder. Carla straightened, and Lucrezia suspected that if she had been facing her, she’d would have been able to see a satisfied smile tugging at the Pearl’s lips.

“I think Carla has demonstrated to us both that she is no ordinary Pearl.”


End file.
